Pune, the second-largest city of Maharashtra, has recorded heavy downpour in the past 24 hours. The airport observatory Lohegaon received three-digit rainfall of 112.2mm in 24 hours, the highest so far in this season. The other observatory at Pashan was the rainiest, with 140.6mm rainfall during the same period. The Meteorological Office observatory at Shivajinagar missed the three-digit mark by a whisker and measured 97mm rainfall—once again, the highest of this season so far. The city has a normal of about 140mm rainfall for the month of September.
The rainfall over the city was attributable to the monsoon system located in close proximity. There is a cyclonic circulation, the remnant of the earlier low-pressure area, marked over the Marathwada region. An east-west trough is extending from the circulation to either side of the Marathwada sub-division. This feature is likely to degrade and diffuse over the next 48 hours. Still, light to moderate showers are expected for the city of Pune and neighbourhood till the weekend. More intense and widespread showers will occur towards the fag end of the month.
Monsoon this year has been a little inconsistent for the city, as such. The starting month of June was decent enough to register normal rainfall. However, the core monsoon months of July and August have underperformed. In the whole of August, the city recorded double-digit rainfall of just 11mm on 29th Aug. On the rest of the days, it was very light or no rainfall at all. The month of July was no different. There were only two occasions of double-digit rainfall, on 03rd July (13mm) and 09th July (19mm). The rainfall in September has far exceeded the normal, and some more showers are likely—quite heavier ones on a few occasions.
A strong monsoon system is likely to form over the Bay of Bengal on 25th–26th Sep. This will rapidly move inland and track across the central parts between 27th and 29th Sep 2025. This is the time when the city and suburbs are likely to be lashed with heavy rainfall. In the revised format, the southwest monsoon retreats from Pune on 09th October, as against its earlier mark of 30th September. Although, these dates are not sacrosanct and have a standard deviation of one week.
